- Not calculating outgoing money stuff until I leave uni & have to deal with the new sitch, student loan etc. But putting the rough outline incoming from march as that’s when the job might start.
*** I wrote this before I knew if I got the job but I got it!! Might do a final para reflecting on the position that puts me in as I leave uni, but for now I will leave the rest as is.
March
Potentially start @ Photographique mid-march. Likelihood of 4-6 shifts.
|
Scenario No. |
Hours in MARCH |
Wage |
Total (before/ after tax) |
|
2 days a week |
35 |
12.21 |
427.35 / 341.88 |
|
3 days a week (incl. hols |
56 |
12.21 |
683.76 / 547.01 |
April
|
Scenario No. |
Hours in APRIL |
Wage |
Total (before/ after tax) |
|
2 days a week |
63 |
12.21 |
762.3/ 609.84 |
|
3 days a week (incl. hols |
91 |
12.21 |
1111.11 / 888.89 |
May
|
PG Hours |
Internship Hours in MAY |
Total income @ Living Wage (before / after tax) |
|
70 / 98 |
49 |
1452.99 / 1794.87 1,162.39 / 1,435.9 |
June
PG Hours |
Internship Hours in MAY |
Total income @ Living Wage |
|
56 / 84 |
49 |
1282.05 / 1623.93 1,025.64 / 1,299.14 |
July
PG Hours |
Internship Hours in MAY |
Total income @ Living Wage |
|
63 / 91 |
49 |
1367.52 / 1709.4 1,094.02 / 1,367.52 |
August...
Now the proper calculations begin!
No more internship, no more old flat, no more loan, + council tax!
Ideally I will land something else that leads on from the internship, which is why I chose ‘trainee/ assistant curator’ as my role for the mock interview. It’s definitely a step ahead, but if I am able to call my internship anything relating to curation then I will have already landed a big and difficult to secure step on the way to that.
Throughout May to July while I have Alejandro on hand I will be looking for any further opportunities to curate, or to catalog an archive, or I will try to set in motion my own open / not open call again.
But need to be realistic about money and living in Bristol.
Switching to avg. weekly Calc
149.50 p/w Rent
7 p/w Electric
8 p/w Gas
22 p/w Council Tax
25 p/w Food
80 p/w General Spending
10 p/w Petrol
Out: £301.50
20% Save: £75.38
Need in: £376.88/week
To cover that with min wage after tax = 39 hours / £381.03
So…
From August, career plan (assuming no better curation based money making options come my way) is to have 39 hours (if minimum wage) work a week/ have multiple income streams that add up to that.
The min wage calculations are the most realistic, obviously my ideal aim is to not only find curation opportunities but also to get grants that pay me artists wages and allow me to have a bit more free time + continue producing Crystal Garden, but I have to have a plan A and that kind of has to be plan B, although one that I push forward constantly.
Me and Tess (gf) really want to live together alone, it’s been 4 years of living together in shared housing and it weighs on our ability to grow as a couple, plus it would be really fun. So that’s honestly my biggest immediate priority, managing to cover the costs associated. The rent (we are lucky to know someone who is renting out a flat, buttt it’s a 2 bed, butt with the estate agent fee taken off it’s priced the same as most Bristol one beds are, ~£1300). It would be 39% of my income assuming I could make the ~£380 p/w which is pushing it but possible.
If I am stuck at 21 hours min wage at one job, the other £175.90 a week could theoretically come from an averaged out freelance work? Would need to make about £215 p/w before tax, seems unlikely honestly but you never know!
The big plus with the potential known house is that it’s got a spare bedroom that could be purely used for a business venture of some sorts & then deducted off of the tax for that venture. Have been thinking about trying to set up a darkroom to run workshops out of, or to print other people’s images from.
My August - November Plan is just to work and earn enough to live in Bristol. At the same time, continuing to push Crystal Garden out into the world, taking whatever opportunities are possible and staying hopeful.
By September, Clare offered to start mentoring. Will double check that she’s alright to do that (*have and she is, will be structuring the beginning of mentoring around applying for an ace grant, if there is a new round of the individual research and development style ones happening right now) but would be a good time to be accountable about how much personal work/ dissemination I’ve actually done and to make a new plan for the coming months.
Now there’s a fork in the road and two potential streams (alongside a million more)
Stream 1 (europe masters?)
In November I want to have a think about Masters (potentially starting Sept 2027). November to March could become masters application period. Depending on where I’m at with finding more curation specific work vs where I am at in my creative practice, I could be looking at further practice based Photography study, or at something like Museum Studies. It just depends what barriers exist then, and which qualification brings down the bigger barrier. I want to progress in both things throughout my life, hopefully it will become clearer which one requires post grad study and which one can be developed otherwise.
March - September would be me and Tess potentially planning our move & moving to wherever the masters takes us. I have an irish passport, Tess has the means to get one. Realistically though it will take her a long time to get that so this is all reliant on starting that application now.
In between that, in April, I will complete my first tax year. How fun! Depending on whether I have taken on any freelance work I may have to get my head around that, although you only have to pay the tax by the Jan after I believe.
Depending on 1/2 years masters, time after September 2027 could shift massively. Either way while I study (still a big ‘if’ tho) I would be working alongside. Assuming I am moving far away, there are no guarantees about what that could involve, my main aim will be to make it a step forward in whatever way possible. The ideal position to be in going into 2028 would be with regular work in the museum/ gallery/ heritage/ archive world, freelance if needs be. I just don’t think I can leave too big a gap- in terms of work that area- from when I leave Bristol.
If it’s a 2 years course I am doing, then 2 years of this, with a slope of progression built in. If it’s one, then by September 2028 moving into 2029 (when I will turn 27 what the actual fuck?!) I want to land a full time job in an aspirational (curator/ archivist/ director/ sky’s the limit) role within the industry. Hoping to god 🙏🤞🤷
***Writing the rest post finding out about the job
Stream 2 (bristol based?)
I’m finishing this off now post interview and success, yay! The reason I’ve added a second ‘stream’ is that the interview was a lot more interesting than anticipated, I assumed it would be a bog standard customer service role based on the ad, but in the interview, they presented it like this:
Opening new Clifton branch, taking some orders for film processing but mainly expanding more into large format printing/ archiving. Plus, they have a lot of undecided space to work with and they want someone to help shape that, come up with ideas, make them happen. Could be a workshop space, an exhibition space, no certainties yet.
Firstly, mad! I’ve been desperate to get some experience archiving between the Avonmouth project with ICVL, the potential bread and butter work, and trying to get experience with Clare & the Lissel Hass’ archive. Also, large format printing is such a good area to get into compared to film processing, your customers are artists and galleries rather than the lovely but very loose base of people shooting casually on film.
Secondly, how exciting! They actually want someone to be creative, and there is scope for growth and change. I think I got the job because I fell in love with the idea of it, in the room, in front of them.
So the second stream is that I really love the role, and I want to commit my time to them longer term. This could still involve a masters (at UWE?) once I’m settled and could arrange with them to facilitate that. I’m sure Dan would understand given that he’s done the same MA. So, long term, I imagine the trajectory would be roughly the same except maybe MA in September 28. But you never know, with good connections at UWE, it could be that I come back to do the MA in 27 but am able to arrange it a bit last minute.
I just want a sense of progression, but that can take many forms and won’t necessarily come from one job alone. Based on how it’s going at Photographique and what kind of opportunities I can glean from ICVL through the internship and following on, I can imagine either going full time at PG, developing into a more managerial role in the Clifton branch if that growth is available to me, or being 4 days a week and dedicating regular time to other projects in and around Bristol.
Conclusion
Don’t know if this thing needs a conclusion, but here goes.
In 3 years time on the 10th March 2029, I will turn 27 and, life’s twists and turns permitting, I will be happy. I will be happy because the world will be just tilting into spring, and I will have an occasion to celebrate. That, and any of the job success that I’ve dreamed up in this file so far, will do nothing to change the fact that just before this, through another long and dreary winter, I will have been sad. Such is life. Nothing I can do for my career will save me from feeling as wrecked with anxiety, low, and out of tune, as I have been this winter. And none of that will prevent me from bursting out into spring, right about now, because there are so many reason’s to celebrate once again.
At the start of this month I was getting into bed and I said to my partner, I’m going to get a job this month. Fuck it, accountability and all that. And now, I have two! And both are injecting me into different chambers of the heart of this wonderful creative city. With ICVL I’m well placed to be involved in BPF, the exciting, international facing side of things. With Photographique, I’ll be within the supportive structures of the photography scene in Bristol, getting trained up on the machines and processes integral to the dissemination of art, and learning how to manage a space and a budget and collaborate with people.
It’s lovely writing this now that I am out of the woods, but I can’t lie, this module and this planner have not been helping lately. Me and my partner have just gone through a rough patch that was almost entirely down to how future obsessed I have been. We’ve had so many serious conversations trying to plan our next steps that we had (not anymore thankfully) forgotten how to have fun. It’s just the pains of trying to fabricate some vision without any of the supporting elements in place. And I have no doubt that I will look back on elements of this module as being really instrumental in wherever I end up. But if I haven’t engaged with it in the way I need to, to hit top marks, then it’s because I’ve been saving myself from ending up any deeper in the pits.
The details in this planner will not stay relevant, but the process behind making it will. And I am really grateful to have been given a reason to think practically like this. Despite my gripes, I think it’s brilliant that uwe does this. Because the post-uni world, and all of its new taxes and time commitments, is incoming anyway and I feel a lot more prepared for it now. Beyond the financial side of things, which my relationship to has improved a lot over this term (I’ve got a march spending diary going and I vaguely understand what PAYE is), I’m glad I’ve been forced to think straightforwardly about the different theoretical pieces of my future and how they might fit together.
Things aren’t simple, money has to come first, the place/ life you live has to stay meaningful for you and your partner, you have to stay fit and healthy and sociable, and then there’s the space for the other stuff. Oh wait, what space? So the things outside of that formula, like disseminating Crystal Garden and doing a masters, are going to have to be a squeeze. The art practice side of things comes from an irrepressible well inside of me, so that’s not going anywhere thankfully 👍 And then the master’s is an interesting one, but I take it from the people who’ve gone this way before me that doing a masters can be really foundational for both your practice and your career (especially if I ever manage to loop back and get into higher education) so I will keep it in my sights.
The greatest gift this module has given me is that healthy dose of realism, a balm to the unrealistic standards I otherwise take on. When you don’t look as closely at life, it’s easy to take in information about amazingly ambitious opportunities, qualifications and so on, set your standards against them, and then get disspointed at your lack of ambition for not chasing them. Once you get into the fine print though, the costs and timings of most things make them simply fantastical, and that’s fine by me. I am slowly remembering how to be, and stay, happy with life again. The loss of that gratitude for life is something I try not to admit in words but have been spelling out with my constant attempts to get somewhere else. Since the start of this year I’ve been on a mad one. Always planting seeds never watering them, I’ve noticed myself being a nuisance, expecting everyone’s time while I buzz around them and float new unrealistic plans, and I’ve then quit on more of them than I ever thought I would allow myself to. It’s all been a subconscious effort to reach greener grass, combined with the instant recognition that I’m the problem, which I repress so I can go at it again.
Anyway, to wrap things up on a positive, I have gone through the motions and I feel all the better for it. I am really positive about the future, and I’m really sure about the environment I’m in, and the people I know here in Bristol, and I know how lucky I am.